Make no little plans here

Profiles

Dr. William Epperson

Professor of English

Dr. William Epperson has been teaching English at ORU for more than four decades, but his passion remains as strong as ever. That may best be exemplified by the fact he was named "Outstanding Faculty Member" during his first year teaching at ORU in 1968-69, and he earned that distinction again in 2008-09.

Dr. Epperson earned his bachelor's degree from Eastern New Mexico University and his master's and Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. He has continued his literary studies by participating in three NEH Summer Seminars, "The Puritan Imagination in English and American Literature" (Brown University), "Milton and the Fall Into Reading" (The Johns Hopkins University), and "Shakespeare and the Human Experience" (University of Virginia).

In addition to these studies, Dr. Epperson also has written a series of textbooks including The World Within, The World Without: Reading for the Christian Student;Encounters: Connecting, Creating, Composing; Strategies for Reading and Writing and Encounters: Readings for Advanced Composition.

Dr. Epperson is passionate about education from a Christian worldview, reading great fiction and poetry, viewing and studying art and traveling. He felt called to Christian higher education from the time he was a college freshman. When he came to an interview at ORU in the spring of 1968, he recognized it as a place where one could practice the gifts of the Holy Spirit in a community of Christian educators who were not simply promoting any one denomination. "I valued the freedom, diversity, tolerance and openness I found here," he says. "I felt a clear calling from God to teach here."

Dr. Epperson also enjoys the respect and admiration of his faculty peers and was selected as president of the newly organized ORU Faculty Senate for 2009-10, helping lead the University through a period of transition and growth.